Milestone anniversaries are an embarassment to WTS?

by bebu 9 Replies latest jw friends

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  bebu

  I read recently that the Nazarene church (where I currently attend) has 1.6 million members worldwide. The Naz church will be CELEBRATING a 100 year anniversary of its beginnings in 2008. (October!) They are making a big deal out of it. Lots of churches celebrate milestones like that, and have a great time.

  I am sure that the WTS must have a hard time "celebrating" its own birthday (btw, what date is that, specifically?). It isn't even supposed to be here; paradise is supposed to have arrived by now! How did they handle milestones like a centennial???? Did they simply ignore them completely?

  bebu
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  garybuss
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  fullofdoubtnow

  I doubt they'd celebrate anything like that. They've changed their beliefs that often due to "new light" it would be difficult to pinpoint an anniversary date anyway.
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  Gill

  I wonder if they'll celebrate in 2014 and what the front page of the Botchtower and Asleep mags will announce on that year!

  'A hundred Years since we got it Totally wrong! We did warn you we were a non prophet organization!!'
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  sir82

  The July 1 1979 Watchtower had a big series of articles celebrating their "birthday"--lots of the usual self-aggrandizement.

  In the fall of 1984 there was a big meeting in Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, commemorating 100 years since the official incorporation of the WTBTS. Most of the GB heavies, including Fred Franz himself, spoke. It was held in conjunction with the annual meeting, but they invited several thousand of the JWs who lived nearby to attend. More self-aggrandizement.

  Since then though, things have been pretty quiet. Then again, the next big anniversary will be 2014--which I'm sure has them all tied up in knots.

  On the one hand, "100 years of Kingdom rulership by Jesus" has a nice ring to it--but then again, it will tend to reinforce in the minds of the R&F that paradise isn't here yet. It's pretty hard to imagine that when Jesus & Paul talked about the "the last days", they really meant "the last centuries". Even the most cognitively dissonant brain-dead drones will have a hard time swallowing that one.
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  OnTheWayOut

  From my understanding, we don't want to bring undue attention to ourselves, when all credit for our surviving another year should go to Jehovah. (Something like that for birthdays, should be similar reasoning for WT.) I have never seen the WT try to use it's own anniversary of anything. It would have been something for them to have a 100 yr. anniversary. While they do not, it will be interesting to see if they try to suppress the JW buzz in 2014. The organization in the U.S. should be much smaller by then, perhaps magazines won't even be twice-a-month by then.

  Also, they would have to be careful with anniversaries. People would want to look back at "that issue 100 years ago." People would say, "My, how things have changed. We used to..." I wish I had said in 1995, "This is the 20 year anniversary of the last 'end of the world.' Now the date has two significant meanings- the time of the end that didn't happen, and the delay of the time of the end indefinitely."
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  badboy

  WHAT WILL THEIR BE TO CELEBRATE IN 2014!
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  monkeyshine

  WHAT WILL THEIR BE TO CELEBRATE IN 2014!

  "The end of the hundred year time has passed! That means this is the beginning of the next time period. Aren't we glad to live in these exciting days?"

  "Not again."
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  OnTheWayOut

  What will there be to celebrate in 2014? Our World Headquarters Bethel staff is back to the same number of people we had 100 years ago.
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  dilaceratus

  Of course their anniversary is celebrated-- it's called Schnorrer's Day.